Greekment: Lafazanis says “Recant!” PM Tsipras says “I can’t!”

Radical Left Coalition Energy Minister Panagiotis Lafazanis, head of the Radical Left Coalition (SYRIZA) government’s Left Platform, is urging Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras to recoil from the agreement before austerity legislation makes its way to Greek Parliament. The treatment that Tsipras received in Brussels has been described by a number of observers as “mental waterboarding” and Lafazanis described Greece’s partners as “brutal blackmailers and financial assassins.”

“The agreement drawn up by the ‘Institutions’ is unacceptable and is not worth associating with a radical party, such as SYRIZA, and an embattled government that promised to abolish bailouts and austerity,” he said. “Our so-called partners – and particularly the German leadership – treated Greece as if it were a colony.”

He pointed out that Greece had and still has an alternative to the dangerous measures. He called on Tsipras to bail out on the agreement.

He said that the agreement may pass through in Parliament as it is voted on by the conservative main opposition party New Democracy, socialist PASOK and centrist To Potami (River) party, but he made it clear that it will not be acceptable to the people who voted a resounding NO during the July 5 referendum.

Lafazanis is not the only MP to express objections. Alternate Minister of Social Insurance Dimitris Stratoulis also voted ‘present’ during Friday’s vote in Parliament and Alternate Minister of European Affairs Nikos Chountis resigned from his position and as a Member of Parliament.